


the privilege of everything

by hotmesslewis



Category: Lewis and Clark
Genre: Historical slash, M/M, i wasn't really sure what to rate this due to some naughtiness, so read at your own discretion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 09:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11918382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotmesslewis/pseuds/hotmesslewis
Summary: It's Meriwether Lewis's birthday, and William Clark is determined to give him a present.





	the privilege of everything

**Author's Note:**

> Aha, that summary sounds a lot dirtier than the thing actually is.

They found, if they woke early enough, they had time for romance in the morning.

They cast off their nightshirts and lay together, nude, William Clark with his bright head on Meriwether Lewis’s chest and an arm draped across Meriwether Lewis’s hips, Meriwether Lewis with his hands playing through William Clark’s hair. They stared up at the ceiling of their tent in content silence, watching the day lightening through the canvas in a heady daze. The weight of the air, sultry and demanding, pressed down on them, but they ignored it in sweating, salty bliss.

“I think I may lay claim to the title of the happiest man in the world this morning,” Lewis confessed with something of wonder.

Clark murmured something in agreement and settled deeper into his lover’s skin.

“I wonder,” Lewis said, dreamy and halting. “How does one celebrate one’s birthday?”

Clark rolled to his side, his arm still across Lewis’s hip, resting his chin, now, on Lewis’s chest.

“Is it your birthday, then, Meriwether?” he inquired. Still the man kept secrets from him.

“It is,” Lewis acknowledged with a bashful grin. “I turn thirty today; I start a new decade in life.”

“Why did you not tell me?” Clark wondered.

“Why should I have told you?” responded Lewis with a light laugh.

“I should have liked to have gotten you some kind of gift.” Clark seemed to have ideas enough of the gifts he could offer Lewis; he had parted Lewis’s legs and had moved between them, laying Lewis’s legs over his shoulders and kissing across the insides of the younger man’s thighs. Clark lowered his head to the man’s flesh, nestling his nose and lips into the dark thatch of hair above the man’s morning hardness.

“Oh, would you have?” Lewis teased him. “What should you have gotten me? A peace medal? An extra measure of tobacco? Red glass beads?”

Clark rubbed his cheek up Lewis’s length before responding. “I imagine I could have done better than that.”

Lewis knew that nothing would come of Clark’s physical attentions—not now, not when the men would be rising (or would be made to rise) in such a short time. Still he lazed and languished in Clark’s provocations. “Could you have?”

“Perhaps I still can.” Clark now spoke with the voice of a man waking, alert, a man very much alive. Lewis longed to drag him back down, into the fairy-world of the dreamland. “What would you like, Meriwether? For your birthday—I’ll get you anything you desire.”

What did he desire?

“Deer or bear or whatever meat you wish, I will catch it and kill it for you. Or if you’d rather a trophy, I’ll get you the pelt of one of those damned prairie wolves. Or, if you like,” Clark was untangling himself from Lewis’s legs, standing and singing out his promises with a laugh, “a feast! A feast of fruit, the finest this muddy old Missouri has to offer! Or, better still—a mammoth, a living, breathing, walking mammoth for you to present to Mr. Jefferson! How about that, Meriwether? Whatever you want, just say, and I will make it yours.”

What did he want?

To never go back.

What Meriwether Lewis wanted was to follow the river to the sea, and there, to send the men back, yes, but he and Clark—they would continue on. Head south, perhaps; perhaps north. If they kept moving the land would never end. They would love each other; they would grow wild, feral in their love.  
Eden was out there, somewhere, his for the taking, if only he could find it.

What he said, instead, surprised even himself.

“I want a dance.”

“A dance?” Clark echoed, disbelieving.

“Yes, a dance!” Lewis sat up and rolled to his feet, full of whimsy. “A dance, Billy! A quartet, all the men in their finest, all the ladies— Well. Who needs the ladies?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for St. Peter and George Gibson, each on fiddle, and I doubt you’ll be able to talk the men into their dress uniforms,” Clark laughed.

“Very well, then—all shall come as they are, and double whiskey for the whole party!”

Clark gazed at him, curious but knowing. “Is this really what you want, Meriwether?”

“Yes, of course,” Lewis lied.

“It’s just—you don’t really seem like the sort of man who enjoys a dance.”

“Don’t I?” Lewis asked, stepping closer to him.

“No,” Clark replied, meeting his challenge.

“Perhaps it’s just that I haven’t found the right partner until now.”

“Oh, is it?” Clark was blushing. “Though I must say, you don’t really seem much like the dancing type.”

“I don’t believe you’ve ever seen me dance.”

“No, I don’t believe I have.”

“Then how would you know?”

“Just instinct. Well, that and the fact that you’re not exactly known for your grace. After all,” Clark teased with the most sincere of reproachful looks, “you did once nearly  
fall from a cliff.”

“You judge my dancing ability based on one near-accident?”

Clark drew in his breath and held it for a moment before nodding seriously. “Yes.”

Lewis moved by Clark’s side and wrapped one arm around Clark’s waist, taking one of Clark’s hand with his own and leading him in a slow turn to a silent tune. “I have always found that, if one has had enough to drink,” he paused, spinning Clark unhurriedly to face the opposite direction and turning about again, “one’s skill is of secondary importance to one’s enjoyment.”

They halted but held the pose, unable to break eye contact. Lewis was aware of Clark’s lips moving before he recognized the man was speaking.

“Well, damn me. The man can dance.”

Lewis looked down, then, smiling shyly.

“This is truly what you want for your birthday, then, Meriwether?”

“It is, Billy.” This time, Lewis considered, he may have been telling the truth.

“Very well. You shall have your dance.”


End file.
